Class Synopsis
Today we reviewed, Metaphysics, the first branch of Philosophy. I will not go into detail as this was covered previously. More importantly we discussed the second branch of Philosophy, Epistemology.
Epistemology means to know words, what is the natural source of knowledge. When answering questions like; what are the sources of knowledge, what kinds of knowledge are there, how do we know anything, it is important to understand the types of knowledge. Apriori knowledge is knowing something without it being connected to an experience, where a Posteriori is knowledge through an experience. The Gettier Problem address that you could still not have knowledge if you believed, justified and new the truth about something. How do we obtain our knowledge; through correspondence, coherence, consensus, authority (teacher, mom, dad, the law), through intuition/foundationalism (born gift or talent), through majority rules (what most think), and Pragmatisms, it is true because it works. These views are basically divided into three categories; rationalism, skepticism and probalism. Rationalism is pure reason is the most reliable source of knowledge. Skepticism is doubt in various fashions. Probalism is when we cannot know for sure but seems more likely than the rest.
To know words is to understand ethics; objective?, when are we responsible for our actions?, treat others equally? From a Relativism point, moral person, Protagoras asked, “Man is the measure” of right and wrong? In Nihilism there is no order, right or wrong. There are definite divisions between Absolutism and Relativism/Nihilism, Freewill vs Determinism, Consequentialism, Intentionalism vs Deontological and applied ethics.
When applying ethics to politics we need to figure out how the human being structures himself with everyone else in the world. This will discussed upon in a later lecture.
Aesthetics raises many questions about art for example, what is it, what are we judging when we look at art, is the art supposed to do anything, what is its’ relationship to beauty, to truth, does the artists’ intent matter, etc.
The final brach of philosophy is logic. Logic is the abstract principles of reasoning. There are two types of logic, deductive and induction; deductive uses general principles and induction uses particular premises in order to draw a conclusion. One has to make a hypothesis in order to be argue/prove his philosophical view.
Next class we will learn what an argument is.
No comments:
Post a Comment